


still on my feet

by esljackzimmermann (QuietLittleVoices)



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, First Kiss, Getting Together, M/M, Magical Realism, Overdose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 05:47:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5485871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuietLittleVoices/pseuds/esljackzimmermann
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack gets his soulmate mark after the overdose. Eric gets his on an otherwise ordinary morning just before his thirteenth birthday. </p>
<p>//</p>
<p>Bob places a hand on his shoulder and Jack immediately looks up into his face and sees the sad expression there. “You’re allowed to be happy, Jack,” he says. Then he takes his hand away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	still on my feet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [memoriesentwined](https://archiveofourown.org/users/memoriesentwined/gifts).



> You asked for 'magical realism or soulmates au' so I gave you a magical realism AND soulmates au in one. I hope you like it!

The thing about abilities is that they always come in handy in unexpected ways. Jack’s mother never dropped anything, so when a man had run into her and dropped his coffee, she caught it upright and was able to hand it to him. She always said that that moment was why she had her ability; to meet Jack’s father.

When Jack takes the pills, one after the other like he can’t stop himself (because he  _ can’t _ ), he can see a few seconds before it happens that he’s going to black out. That this might kill him. He didn’t mean to - he never meant for this to happen. He doesn’t know if he’s going to wake up and doesn’t realize that he wants to until he knows that he might not.

And then everything goes dark.

 

It isn’t the first thing they say when he wakes up, but it’s close to it. It’s definitely the first non-medical thing said to him after he wakes up, of that he’s sure.

His father says it, quiet and businesslike. Jack had always privately thought of it as his press-conference voice; completely neutral so as to in no way betray his true feelings on a subject.

“Who’s ‘Bitty’?” he asks. “Is that a teammate?”

Jack blanks. “I - don’t know anyone named Bitty. Who is that?”

His mother smiles softly and reaches out, rests one of her small hands on top of his much larger ones. “We love you no matter what, Jack, but the nurses found your soulmate mark. Why didn’t you tell us?”

“I - what? I don’t have a soulmate mark,” Jack says. 

His parents share a look that Jack can’t decipher and it frustrates him. “You do now,” Bob tells him.

“Do you know anyone with that name?” Alicia asks, still in that soft and placating way. Jack was beginning to hate that tone of voice.

“If I did, I’d tell you,” he says, almost angrily, and then he regrets it. “No,” he repeats, more quietly this time. “No I don’t.”

Alicia pushes herself up so she can smooth back his hair and press her lips against his forehead. “Okay, darling.”

 

Eric wakes up on a February morning and finds the name ‘Jack’ penned carefully but still a little messily on his side.

To say that he freaks out would be an understatement. The thought had occurred to him - that he might be… like that - but he’d been trying very hard not to think about it. This made it hard to ignore.

So he puts on his shirt and goes to school and no one notices that anything is different.

 

By twelfth grade most people have their names. Usually, it’s spurred on by sending an application to a certain school, or receiving an acceptance, or joining the military. 

Turns out, just another thing that they decide to bully him on is the fact that he’s never told anyone his name.

They corner him at the end of lunch one day when he’s eating alone out back and grab at his shirt, pushing him up against the wall and moving as if to try and pull his shirt over his head. Eric’s never been more grateful than that moment with how small he was, because he manages to wiggle out of their grasp and duck down to get between them. He runs into the school quickly and finds his way to the cafeteria, where he knows there were too many people for any of the bullies to try anything, and he stays there until the bell rings.

 

Eric thought he might meet his soulmate in high school, but that didn’t happen. There had been a boy on the co-ed hockey team named Jack but he always bragged about the name  _ Angelica _ on his side and how he’d known her since they were kids. 

The only thing he really figured out in high school was that he could never, ever tell anyone about the name on his side, and that he was incapable of burning a pie. That, he’d figured out in the tenth grade, and his mama pointed out that she’d never seen a pie burn when he was the one who’d put it in. After that, they’d all just accepted that that was his ability. His mama’s had something to do with house cleaning, Eric was fairly certain, though he could never remember what, and he’d never really learned what Coach’s was.

Having his ability be that he’s a really good baker didn’t exactly help with the bullying. It didn’t matter though, because he looked at the name on his side and the brochure for Samwell (it had a picture of an LGBT Winter Formal  _ on the pamphlet _ ) and he knew, for sure this time, that he was going to meet Jack soon and it would be alright.

 

The Samwell Hockey Team’s Captain was named Jack, and he hated Eric. And it was fine - Eric would meet a lot of different boys named Jack at Samwell, probably. It was fine.

 

Jack had never really had a problem with running into random people named  _ Bitty  _ in his life. He thought that maybe it was some weird fluke of the universe; a nonsense word instead of a blank, but still resulting in the same lack of soulmate.

Even though he tried to suppress his ability - replying to questions before they were asked was generally thought of as ‘weird’ - he couldn’t help when he was tired and heard Shitty tell him about the new kid  _ Bitty _ just as, in the present, Shitty was entering the room.

“Brah, Bitty’s pies are the  _ best _ .”

The only reason Jack doesn’t startle noticeably at the name is because he’s just heard Shitty say it, and anyone would be slightly startled at a boxer-clad mustachioed hockey player depositing themselves in their bed.

“I didn’t get to try them,” Jack says, and he tries to write off his lack of breath to the fact that Shitty’s elbow is digging into his diaphragm but he knows that’s not quite true. Only partially; Shitty has bony elbows.

“I know you’re all about the diet plan and whatever,” Shitty says, “but honestly, bro, it’s worth it.”

Jack huffs a laugh. “I’m sure.”

 

Bob comes down for parents weekend and meets Bitty. When they’re alone outside Faber after that, he turns to look at Jack and Jack braces himself before Bob starts to talk.

“So that’s him. Are you two…?”

He doesn’t even ask the question and Jack feels better about his cowardice towards Bitty so far.

“I don’t think it’s going to happen,” Jack says, looking anywhere but at his father.

Bob places a hand on his shoulder and Jack immediately looks up into his face and sees the sad expression there. “You’re allowed to be happy, Jack,” he says. Then he takes his hand away.

They don’t talk about it again.

 

“Jack seems nice,” Suzanne says as she and Bitty walk out of the arena and towards her parked rental car.

Bitty sighs loudly. The only regret that he had about telling his mama the name of his soulmate was that she kept offering to introduce him to every Jack that she ran into - from the grocery clerk to one of her friends’ sons. “It’s not him, mama, he  _ hates _ me.”

She makes a thoughtful noise. “It’s a thin line, sweetheart.”

 

The day that Lardo had officially gotten her nickname, Shitty had knocked on Jack’s window from the reading room. Neither of them realized that it was the first time, but it wouldn’t be the last.

Jack opened the window and climbed out when it was clear that Shitty hadn’t wanted  _ in _ . Shitty didn’t offer him the joint that he was holding and Jack didn’t expect him to. He wanted to know what Shitty was about to say, but he didn’t want to invade his friends privacy so he focused on staying in the present.

“This whole soulmate thing is bullshit,” Shitty said after a minute of silence.

Jack had just nodded and watched the smoke curl up into the night sky. “You can say that again.”

 

It takes until just after winter break for Shitty to knock on Jack’s window, wait for him to climb out, and ask him about Bitty. Because he knows - of  _ course _ he knows; they’ve shared a bathroom for a year and a half - and Jack’s grateful that Shitty is the way he is and would never bring it up in front of anyone else.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Shitty asks, taking a drag from his joint.

Like that night in their sophomore year, Jack watches the smoke curl upwards. Unlike that night, he doesn’t nod. “No,” he says simply.

Shitty makes a thoughtful noise in the back of his throat as if that’s the most philosophical thing he’s ever heard and he thoroughly considers it in his head before replying: “Okay. Do you wanna hug?”

Jack nods and Shitty scoots over, throwing his arm around Jack’s shoulder, and Jack sags against his side. “Soulmates are bullshit,” he mutters, echoing Shittys’ favourite quote to use when arguing with closed-minded people - or really when he was informing anyone of the realities of a society where a name was the most highly regarded thing there could be when it came to romance.

Shitty shakes his shoulder lightly in agreement. “Fuck yeah, brah, you can say that again.”

 

Checking practice is basically the worst thing ever, even though Bitty’s sure that Jack isn’t his soulmate. He can’t help but think that Jack is attractive - that’s basically an objective fact. The sun is hot, humidity makes his hair puff up, and Jack Zimmermann is attractive. He tries not to be too hard on himself for simply agreeing with a universal truth.

“Good job,” Jack says as they step off the ice, giving Bitty a small smile.

Bitty ducks his head to hide his blush and hopes that Jack writes it off as being from the cold. “Thanks. And thank you for helping me.”

Jack puts his still-gloved hand on Bitty’s shoulder. “It’s no problem. I’m your captain; I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t help you, eh?”

Bitty has to struggle to keep his shoulders level when all he wants to do was slump. “Yeah. Well, still. Thank you.”

 

Bitty gets hit and Jack acts like it’s his fault.

They don’t get a moment alone together until a few days later, as Bitty’s starting to move into the Haus. Well, he’s not moving much of anything - Ransom and Holster have made it their mission to keep him from doing any heavy lifting so that he can get better faster. He’s grateful for their help, especially since standing up too quickly still makes his head spin.

Finally, though, Bitty manages to find Jack alone.

“It’s only because of  _ your _ help that it isn’t worse,” Bitty tells him. He realizes that it was the wrong thing to say just as it finishes coming out of his mouth, but it isn’t a lie and he can’t think of anything else to say, so he just lets it hang in the air between them as Jack looks down awkwardly at his feet.

“It shouldn’t have happened at all,” Jack mutters, sounding almost childish, and Bitty can’t help but smile.

“But it did. And I’ll be good as new next year!”

 

They text over the summer and, to be perfectly honest, it’s a little weird in the way that it isn’t weird. They don’t text as much as Jack knows Ransom and Holster do, but Jack texts Bitty more than he texts anyone else - including Shitty. 

They Skype a few times (twice) and it’s actually  _ fun _ . Jack finds himself laughing, genuinely, at some of the stories Bitty tells him about his younger cousins or the kids he’s teaching to skate at the local rink.

It gets to the point that both his parents notice.

“ _ C’est qui _ ?” Alicia asks, gesturing at Jack’s phone which keeps vibrating next to his plate at the dinner table.

“ _ Personne d’importes _ ,” Jack says, even though that’s obviously a lie. Bob looks at him like he wants to say something, but he keeps quiet until they’re alone after dinner.

“ _ C’est Eric, oui _ ?”

Jack can’t help but roll his eyes a little. “ _ T’es répondu toi-même. J’suis pas nécessaire à la conversation _ .” It’s a bit childish of a response, but it doesn’t admit anything.

Bob pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs but doesn’t say anything.

“ _ Oui, c’est Eric _ ,” Jack mutters, and then quickly runs away from any continuance of what was doomed to be an awkward conversation.

 

Bitty can’t contain his disappointment when he realizes he’s going to need help with checking again - all his progress from last year undone by a fluke of a hit.

No matter how hard he looks for it, though, Jack doesn’t seem to mind helping him, so that’s a plus. Bitty would understand a bit of disappointment from him; helping a teammate with something that’s basically as essential to hockey as being able to stand on skates isn’t exactly the way most NHL-bound college hockey players want to spend their mornings. Not that Bitty knows any other NHL-bound college hockey players, but he can guess.

He’s kind of blindsided when Jack signs up for the food class he wants to take, and he can’t help but think for just a moment that Jack is taking it so the coaches have more incentive to change practice times so that Bitty can take it. But then he shakes that thought away - it’s a history credit; probably just something Jack’s going to use as an easy credit for his degree.

The motives don’t really matter in the end, Bitty thinks; he’s grateful anyway. Even after having talked to Jack over the summer, Bitty had a worry in the back of his head that said Jack was going to go back to the same asshole mannerisms as when they first met. Bitty was a little ashamed at having thought that, now that they were taking a class together and getting coffee together after that class more often than not. 

It isn’t until November that Bitty started thinking about telling Jack his soulmate’s name. He’d have to explain that he knew it wasn’t Jack, but that he felt a little dishonest keeping it from him since they’d become friends. Soulmates didn’t come up often - or ever if Bitty really thought about it - in their conversations, so it’s not like he would have had a casual opportunity to drop his name on Jack, but he still felt like he should tell Jack that he shared the name of Bitty’s soulmate. That seemed like the friendly thing to do.

 

“My soulmate’s name is Jack,” Bitty blurts out near the end of the semester while they’re sitting at a small table in Annie’s drinking coffee.

Jack startles a little and tries to school his face. He tries hard enough to not know what people are about to say to him in a conversation that he could be taken by surprise with the simplest things, but this wasn’t exactly a ‘simple thing’. “Okay?” he says slowly.

“I know it’s not you,” Bitty continues as if Jack hadn’t spoken at all, and for a minute Jack doubts that he  _ did _ say anything. Except, no, he definitely did. “I just - well, we’re friends, and I felt weird about not telling you. I know it’s not you,” he repeats.

The silence stretches on and Jack realizes then that he’s supposed to say something. “It’s - it’s fine, Bitty.” He tries to give him a little half-smile and hopes it doesn’t come out as a grimace. “I’ve met other people with ‘Jack’. It’s a common name. I’m, uh - well, I’m sorry that you have such a common name, there. You’ve probably met a lot of Jack’s, eh?”

Bitty visibly relaxes, slumping back into his seat comfortably and taking a sip from his too-sweet coffee. “Thanks for not being weird about it,” Bitty says, smiling at him from across the table in a way that kind of melts his heart.

Jack nods and takes a sip of his coffee because he doesn’t know what to do with his hands. “It’s not a big deal.” To his own ears, his voice sounds as easy and light as it can, but he doesn’t feel that way at all.

 

Shitty is a remarkably easy person to talk to. Five minutes into a conversation with him and most find themselves willing to tell him anything at all. Jack would have thought that that was his ability if he didn’t know Shitty was, essentially, a human space heater - he’d told Jack once that his body temperature didn’t change, ever, which he took full advantage of by walking around naked as much as possible. 

“It’s a blessing and a curse,” Shitty had lamented. “But my body is too good to keep hidden.”

So that was why, even though he absolutely did not want to talk about it, Jack found himself blurting out, “I want to tell him, but I don’t think it’s a good idea,” in the middle of one of Shitty’s many rants - which, admittedly, he hadn’t been listening to at all.

Shitty’s voice dropped off mid-sentence and Jack froze. He’d been fairly certain that Shitty would know what he was talking about (he hated using specifics in personal conversations; the thin Haus walls had been known to betray anyone who divulged a secret within them) but in the moment of silence between his words and Shitty’s he worries that it he hadn’t been clear enough.

“You should do whatever you feel is right, dude,” Shitty says. “If you want my advice - there’s something great there, potentially, between you guys. You wouldn’t have his name if there wasn’t. But having his name doesn’t mean you have to do anything about it - there isn’t some  _ obligation _ inherent in having someone’s name.”

Jack swallowed around a lump in his throat. “Thanks, Shitty,” he says quietly and Shitty just nods.

“No problem, man. Now, as I was saying -”

 

The disaster that is Epikegster happens.

“The kid you were talking to - is that him?” Kent asks. 

Jack doesn’t answer; thinks that if Kent had any doubts about that after seeing the way Jack looked at Bitty (and Jack knew he wasn’t exactly subtle), then the way he looks at Bitty when Kent opens Jack’s door and finds him sitting on the floor looking afraid says it all.

 

Bitty leaves cookies in Jack’s baggage because he has rarely encountered a problem that couldn’t be solved with baked goods, and the text Jack sends him when he finds them warms his heart for the rest of the day. Even his mama notices the way his mood shifts and gives him a knowing look.

They text a lot, and his mama keeps asking him who he’s on the phone with, but he doesn’t tell her because then her knowing look would never go away. And as much as Bitty wishes that there was something to know, there wasn’t, and that was fine.

He likes being Jack’s friend. It’s enough.

 

Jack walks into the kitchen a few days after winter break to find Bitty looking frustrated but still pulling a perfectly cooked pie out of the oven.

“I never thought I’d wish that I could burn a pie before,” Bitty says to him without looking his way. “But at least that would tell me how bad Betsy is doing. ‘Cause she’s not doin’ too well.”

Jack takes a seat at the kitchen table. “Take a break, Bitty,” he says, pulling out the chair next to him.

Bitty collapses into it gratefully. “I’m just - I’m  _ frustrated _ .”

Jack nods and licks his lips, looking down at the table in front of him like the pattern of scars and markings is the most interesting thing in the world. “Listen, I - uhm. There’s something I want to tell you.”

“Okay,” Bitty says, straightening in his chair and turning towards Jack as best as he can without it being uncomfortable.

“I’m graduating soon,” he says, glancing over at Bitty just in time to see a flash of what looks like disappointment cross his face, “and I didn’t want to - I didn’t want to leave anything unsaid.”

Jack looks over at Bitty fully, now, and Bitty just looks confused. “Okay?”

“I didn’t have a soulmate name for a really long time,” he admits, “and I thought that I’d never have one. I thought that  _ hockey _ was my soulmate, or something.” His laugh comes out a little dry and a little flat. “But - I do have one. A nurse was the one that saw it, after - after everything, you know?” He knows that Bitty knows what happened to him - what he did to himself - but he still phrases it like a question. Jack looks away again - can’t look at Bitty as he finally gets to his point. “And one of the first things my parents asked me after I woke up was ‘Who’s Bitty?’.”

Bitty doesn’t answer for a few horrible, painful seconds. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks quietly. 

Jack raises one shoulder and lets it drop - a feeble half-shrug. “It just - I didn’t think -” he sighs, cutting himself off. Jack runs a hand over his face. “I don’t think I have a good answer,” he admits. “I was scared.”

“That’s as good an answer as any,” Bitty says. “Why are you telling me now?”

“I’m graduating,” Jack repeats, finally turning back to look at him. “I didn’t want to leave anything unsaid. I didn’t want to - to lose a chance at something that could be good.” He can hear Shitty’s voice in the back of his mind as he speaks.

Bitty shifts a little bit closer and then stops. “So are we going to,” he waves a hand between them vaguely, “or are you just... telling me. Letting me know.”

“I would like to, you know,” he copies Bitty’s hand gesture with a bit of a teasing smile. “But it’s up to you. It’ll be hard, because I don’t want to come out in my first season, at least - depending on how that goes, maybe afterwards, but not during. And I still don’t know what team I’m going to sign with.”

Jack can’t help it if he can’t concentrate enough to keep his ability in check after saying that, and he hears Bitty’s words just before he says them and can barely keep his reaction off his face.

“I wanna try,” Bitty says quickly, and then flushes up to the top of his ears. “I just - I like you a lot, and there’s a reason we have each other’s names, and I think we should try.”

Jack grins and leans into Bitty’s space. “I was hoping you would say that,” he admits. And he knows what’s about to happen before either of them lean in, even though later he won’t be able to say who, exactly, leaned in first - it was more like a mutual, unspoken agreement that this was a thing they were going to do.

And then they were kissing, turned a bit awkwardly in the kitchen chairs, and it’s everything that Jack had tried so hard not to think about. He’d thought for so long that his ability had been to let him know, years ago, that he wanted to wake up, but when kissing Eric Bittle he thinks that, really, this was why all along.


End file.
